True campaign play (rather than just ability to play individual campaign maps against AI with other folks) is a more recent thing, I think the most recent C&C: Red Alert game (which I have but haven't opened) ballyhooed.

I did like playing individual campaign maps in SC with other players, and I hope that much is available.

I can only speak to stuff like Company of Heroes and the Homeworld games (bought the original Dawn of War and really enjoyed the DoWII demo) but it always frustrated me that Relic's stuff never has sold in the volumes that Blizzard's, Westwood's or say, the late Ensemble Studios' RTS stuff did.

I can only speak to stuff like Company of Heroes and the Homeworld games (bought the original Dawn of War and really enjoyed the DoWII demo) but it always frustrated me that Relic's stuff never has sold in the volumes that Blizzard's, Westwood's or say, the late Ensemble Studios' RTS stuff did.

You have to remember that one of the reasons Publishers and their current owners have come to Relic is because they're development costs -being in Vancouver Canada- are far lower. I doubt any of their Publishers have had anywhere near the marketing budgets that Blizzard, Westwoods or Ensemble had for their RTS's. Then factor in that their games have mostly been marketed by Sierra and THQ - not exactly publishing power houses anymore. Despite the AAA quality of their titles, money and lower costs are more the deciding/compelling factor for their publishers. If Relic could be truly independent things might be different, but I can assure you that finding the capital to do that in Western Canada is about as easy as pinning down an exact release date for SC2.

Anyhoo...glad to see this is really progressing and finally about to happen. I've never been that much of an RTS player, but Star Craft was one the games I had lots of fun playing over LANs back in the day.

Did I really cite Westwood and Ensemble Studios (both now long defunct/absorbed/assimilated/pick your term) as something for Relic to aspire to? I'd prefer to see Relic scrape beneath the cushions and continue to find a way to stay in business. I'd also prefer they not segue into consoles and falsely (as Ensemble found out, its Halo RTS being its swan song) think it represents a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

At one point in 2007 my favorite games were THQ releases (Titan Quest and its expansion, Company of Heroes). I think they've supported some pretty fine games, ones that were apparently very expensive to develop, that just don't sell as anticipated.